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| Click on Photo to Enlarge Grand-daughter Mattie-Belle Helping to Dig the Potato Crop |
Around the 1st week of August, grand-daughter Mattie-Belle and I staged a mini-excavation of our potato crop to assess whether anything was developing beneath the surface of the soil.
A good healthy portion of potato greens were growing above ground, but we were novice farmers and needed assurance that progress at the bottom was in keeping with the progress at the top.
Gently feeling around with my bare hands, so as not to hurt the tender potato tubers, I was happy to find three red skinned potatoes: A meager beginning, I'll grant you, but I thought respectable for a beginner.
A few weeks later, when the leaves had wilted and begun to dry out, we went at it again with the assistance of my husband, Doug. This time, we pulled the tops and excavated all six of the baskets of potatoes, saving the soil in two plastic garbage cans for growing different crops next summer (crop rotation, don't you know).
Mattie-Belle loved the harvest, especially getting her hands dirty and pulling up several dozen small red spuds. We brought them in the house and washed them off, leaving the majority to dry but cooking some that night for dinner. They were delicious, even if I do say so myself; and, we've enjoyed several more meals using our home-grown potatoes since.
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| Our meager harvest |
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| A summer feast ... new potatoes, corn and steak |
All in all, I think I'd grow potatoes again, though I'd plant them earlier and hill them higher. I found that it's interesting to follow the ever-changing growth in the garden, and exciting to experience the magic through the eyes of a child.
